Psychedelic Porn Crumpets @ The Rosemount Hotel
with Hideous Sun Demon, Pat Chow, Western Kingsmen of the Sun, Bells Rapids
Saturday, May 27, 2017
The Perth-based psychedelic rock outfit Psychedelic Porn Crumpets raised the roof at the new and improved Rosemount on Saturday night with the live launch of their new album High Visceral Part 2. Fans of the band and local gig-goers were treated to a real rough and tumble mosh pit and a night to remember.
The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets play lucid rock and roll that could be seen as an acid trip on a record, their intricate recordings laced with other-worldly guitar licks and meaningful lyrics. Their aforementioned new album has a plethora of great influences, ranging from Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Tame Impala and many others, fusing these to make an album that is quintessentially of their own sound.
The Porn Crumpets have been rapidly gaining a steady following of late, now racking up over 7,000 fans on Facebook. It would seem many of these turned out for what was a sellout show on Saturday night for the album launch. The show sold out very quickly and there was quite a large line forming before the opening act even got started. Single launches for their new tracks Buzz and Gurzle were sellouts, so it’s no surprise that they packed the Rosemount on Saturday night. Since the release of their debut album High Visceral Part 1, the band have backed King Gizzard, Dune Rats and Skegss, to name a few.
Along with the album launch, the band had their own virtual reality game set up for people to take a crack at. The game was set in outer space, with a purple sky covered in vibrant stars, which certainly matches their acid-trip sound. The player could visit a number of different planets, where each planet would play a different part of a song of theirs. It was a neat little touch that was a unique idea from the band, much like their music.
Kicking things off was Bells Rapids, playing some nice tunes to set the scene as the room began to fill, albeit slowly, as fans mingled outside and tried their hand at the VR game. Although the venue now gives room for a much better atmosphere, the Rosemount have taken to serving drinks in the small plastic cups typical of that at a concert or a festival. Of course, it’s understandable why; especially with the breakneck ferocity of mosh pits incited by the Porn Crumpets, but boy does that beer go warm quickly.
Coming on at 9pm was Western Kingsmen of the Sun, who started to get the crowd pumping and built a little mosh pit of their own. Their sound is influenced heavily by Pink Floyd, which certainly isn’t a bad thing and they were an excellent supporting act for the Porn Crumpets. With the mosh pit starting to grow, I was gearing myself up to be getting my drink knocked out of my hand pretty shortly, and isn’t that what a proper rock and roll gig is all about?
Following the Western Kingsmen were Pat Chow and Hideous Sun Demon. These guys both really ripped the place up with some hard rock that primed the crowd for the Porn Crumpets. By the end of Pat Chow’s set, the room was absolutely full to the brim and the place felt set to explode. With the Porn Crumpets not coming on until 11:30, it’s safe to say most of the crowd was more than intoxicated and loosened up to get rowdy.
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets finally arrived on stage at 11:30, fronted by the ever-smiling Jack McEwan, and they opened with Entropy from their first album, High Visceral Part 1. It’s simply a nice, short instrumental, which led into Ergophobia from the new album. This seriously sparked chaos, with death circles opening up left, right and centre, and crowd surfers aplenty. There was something so therapeutic about seeing McEwan screaming about his hate for his old job, “fuck this I’m out I quit!” with bodies being thrown all over the joint. I was trying to take a place at the side of the action to pay attention to the gig, but I ended up being sucked into the action.
From here they went back to the first album and played Surf’s Up, which slowed things down a little – probably a safe move to stop the Rosemount getting trashed!
The Crumpets continued their older material with Found God in a Tomato, a near nine-minute sprawl of varying pace and a personal favourite of mine, although I think they may have cut it down a touch time-wise. This followed into Marmalade March, a bluesy thumper. Afterwards, fans were treated to an unreleased tune, which always makes going to gigs by your favourite bands well worthwhile. Then it was back to last year’s catalogue with Cornflake. The boys kept the crowd engaged with a little between-songs chatter, but kept it to a minimum to keep the mayhem pedalling along.
From here the Crumpets began introducing a string of their new material, starting with Buzz. Buzz is as heavy a number as any, but it’s a great song that provides much food for thought, and McEwan stated previously that he was in a “how bad are humans?” state of mind when he wrote it, after watching Band of Brothers.
Dependent on Mary was up next, which is a song about McEwan having a boring time on a farm in Southport and running out of weed. It seems all of The Crumpets’ repertoire is a mosh pit lover’s paradise. Segueing straight from here they tore through Gurzle, another track of true head-banging sound but deeper meaning, centering around how our world is in need of help but with our technology and easy lives, why would we bother doing anything productive and getting a job?
I was over the moon when they next played First Light in the Garden at Chipping, my favourite track from the new album. It was appropriately placed to relax the crowd a little before the big close, which started with Cubensis Lenses from Part 1 and Move from the new one. Move has a really nice interaction between the percussion and the guitars; the song has a strange, awkward swagger to it and it was great to see that translate from the record into the live performance.
To end the set, Nek launched the crowd into chaos once more. This song is really great music; it’s a global warming message with some awesome guitar work over the top. It’s one of my favorites and, judging by the crowd’s reaction to it, many other peoples favourite too. But before the boys left the stage we were treated to one last surprise, another unreleased number, but by this time it felt as though everyone was too fired up from Nek to really appreciate the new track. It was hot and everyone’s hair was plastered to their faces with sweat, luckily it was a cool night so getting out into the fresh air was a great relief.
To put the gig into one word that the Porn Crumpets themselves would love, I’d say it was “spangladestic”. It was lucid, psychedelic rock at its very finest. If they keep drawing crowds with as much energy as that, word will continue to spread and their music will reach the even wider audience that it deserves.
I’ll be getting tickets for their next gig. For now though, I’m going to nurse my bruises from Saturday night.
CALLUM SYNNOTT
